'This Week' Transcript: Timothy Geithner

ELLMERS: And I'm very much in favor of it. Again, we must save
Medicare. We have a spending problem in this country, not a revenue
problem.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, you raised revenue problem. Let me
ask you too, congressmen Walsh and Southerland. The Ryan budget does
not talk about raising revenues. President Obama's proposal does,
eliminating tax cuts on the wealthy.

Can you really sustain what everybody is calling for just by cuts
in public services? Doesn't there need to be revenue-raising
mechanisms?

SOUTHERLAND: Go ahead, Joe.

WALSH: Christiane, you raise revenue by growing the economy.
And everything this president has done the last two years has gone
against that. You get taxes and regulations off the backs of
businesses so that revenues can increase.

AMANPOUR: I know -- I know that that is your position. But
there's so much evidence, even going back to Ronald Reagan, where he
did tax cuts and in fact the debt increased, and then he had to make
tax increases. I mean, can you really cut public spending by that
amount and just expect to balance the budget?

WALSH: But -- and Steve will say this, in the '80s, government
revenues went up. We didn't cut spending. Revenues went up in the
'80s. Every time we've cut taxes, revenues have gone up, the economy
has grown.

Look, Christiane, I've said this before, the president of the
United States ought to be ashamed of himself. And I don't know why
your profession hasn't gotten on him more. Two months ago he presents
a budget and doesn't even talk about entitlement reform. And then all
of a sudden last week he gets a redo?

The Republicans are leading on this, perfectly prepared to take
whatever political hits we have to take, because the crisis is so
severe. I wish he would be a part of this.

AMANPOUR: But that is an interesting point you made, about
taking the hits that you have to take, because, for instance, there
are all sorts of ads now, going out about Medicare, and being careful
about it.

You know, the Republicans actually tried to put those ads out in
2010 and did get seniors on their side. So you're not concerned that
these cuts and this restructuring of Medicare is actually not going to
be good for you at the voting?

SOUTHERLAND: Well, listen, great leadership understands that
sometimes you're going to take hits. And you don't make this decision
-- you don't make decisions in the best interests of American people
and expect to be applauded for everything you do.

Look, we have dug ourselves a hole and the only way that we can
dig ourselves out or climb out of this hole is to make some very
difficult decisions. I've said, numerous times here on the Hill, I
may lose 2012, but I'm not going to lose me in this process.

And so we've got -- if we care about these programs, we have to
make decisions now in order to save them.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, thank you very much indeed, all of
you, for joining us.

And up next, our powerhouse "Roundtable," with insight from Alice
Rivlin, the Clinton budget director who helped Paul Ryan with his
budget; political analysis from Matthew Dowd; President Obama's close
friend, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick; and our own George Will.
That's ahead.

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OBAMA: These are the kinds of cuts that tell us we can't afford
the America that I believe in and I think you believe in. I believe
it paints a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic.